U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is claiming credit for beginning the end of what President Donald Trump has termed “American Carnage,” a spike in violent crime during 2015 and 2016, the final two years of the Obama administration.

In an opinion piece published Tuesday in USA Today, Sessions pointed to preliminary FBI data showing that violent crime in the United States decreased by 0.9 percent during the first half of last year and that the increase in the murder rate had slowed.

“When President Trump was inaugurated, he made the American people a promise: ‘This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,’” Sessions wrote. “It is a promise that he has kept.”

​Too soon to know

But criminologists say it’s too early to read anything into the reported six-month decline in crime and that there is little evidence to support Sessions’ claim that Trump administration policies contributed to it.

“It’s obviously positive if violent crime goes down, but I think drawing conclusions about annual trends or a ‘leveling out’ based on six months of data is premature,” said New Orleans-based crime analyst Jeff Asher. “I’m not sure the data shows anything has changed.”

The attorney general attributed the decline in part to increased federal prosecution of all manner of violent criminals: gang members, human traffickers and firearms violators.

Behind decline

But Thomas Abt, a former federal prosecutor now a senior fellow at Harvard Law School and Kennedy School of Government, noted that the decline came before Trump announced his first wave of U.S. attorneys in June.

“It’s simply not honest to say that aggressive federal prosecution was responsible for the crime decline when the federal prosecutors that Trump nominated weren’t even in office at the time,” Abt said.

What is more, he said, about 90 percent of criminal prosecutions in the United States are handled by local and state courts, not federal ones.

“The argument that Sessions seems to be making, which is that what we do with our 10 percent is having a big impact on the 90 percent, is a little hard to believe,” Abt said.

​Slowdown in ‘murder rate’

According to the FBI data, the number of murders rose by 1.5 percent during the first six months of last year, compared with an increase of 5.2 percent during the same period in 2016, a slowdown Sessions highlighted as an achievement.

Jeff Asher, a Louisiana-based criminologist, dismissed the change as insignificant.

“I’m not sure the data shows anything has changed,” Asher said. He added that the figures still leave the country’s murder rate about 20 percent higher than it was in 2014.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Through much of the past year, Sessions has frequently cited FBI data on increases in violent crime in 2015 and 2016 to warn about a festering crime epidemic and to push his tough-on-crime agenda.

In February, he set up a task force on violent crime reduction and public safety. In March, he directed federal prosecutors to prioritize targeting violent criminals. And in May, he ordered U.S. attorneys to “pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” with the lengthiest sentences in all criminal cases.”

Citing an 11 percent increase in the murder rate in 2015, Sessions told a group of law enforcement officers in August that “violent crime is back with a vengeance.”

Fluctuation in data

But crime data fluctuate from year to year, and Abt said it is more helpful to look at three- to five-year increments of data for evidence of a trend.

“It’s premature to celebrate,” Abt said. “What happens month to month or year to year can change.”

Despite the upticks in 2015 and 2016, crime in the United States remains well below its peak in the early 1990s.

In 1991, about 5,850 crimes were committed per 100,000 Americans. In 2015, the overall crime rate stood at 2,857 per 100,000 residents.

Criminologists attribute the decline to a variety of factors, from improved policing to community engagement to increased incarceration.
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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he is optimistic bipartisan negotiations on immigration, government funding and other issues will lead to results and strongly prefers an agreement before Feb. 8, when current funding for the government expires.

McConnell, a Republican, said in a Senate floor speech that a bipartisan, bicameral group was working on immigration, and he looked forward to seeing a promised White House framework on the matter next week. “I‘m optimistic,” he said, adding: “It is my strong preference that senators reach bipartisan agreement on these issues in advance of February 8.”

McConnell restated his own pledge that if a long-term agreement by Feb. 8 eludes the Senate, the chamber will proceed to legislation on immigration and border security, as long as the government stays open.
…

The civil rights group NAACP is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its decision to end nearly 60,000 Haitian migrants’ participation in a provisional U.S. residency program that shields them from deportation.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, as the Miami Herald first reported Wednesday. It said the group – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – contends the decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti in July 2019 is “irrational and discriminatory.”

The suit was filed on behalf of the NAACP and its Haitian members. It alleges that Homeland Security did not follow its “normal decision making process in regards to whether or not Haitians should still receive the humanitarian protection,” thus blocking Haitians from exercising their constitutional right to due process and equal protection, the Herald reported.

The department’s acting secretary, Elaine Duke, announced her termination decision in November. The department, Duke and new DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen all are named defendants.   

The NAACP suit also cited what it called President Donald Trump’s “public hostility toward immigrants of color,” the Herald reported.

DHS acting press secretary Tyler Q. Houlton told the Herald the department does not comment on pending litigation.

In discussing immigration with a small group of lawmakers earlier this month, the president reportedly questioned including Haitians in a proposed deal. “Why do we want people from Haiti here?” he reportedly asked.   

U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who was in that meeting, also reported Trump as describing Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “s—hole” countries.

In a subsequent Twitter post, the president denied using the profanity, saying he used language that “was tough, but this was not the language used.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump says he is willing to answer any questions under oath as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I am looking forward to it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday at the White House before leaving for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  “I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible.  I would do it under oath, absolutely.”

Trump reiterated that there was “no collusion” with Russia to help him win the election and suggested he is being investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia probe because he was “fighting back” against the probe.

“Oh, well, Did he fight back?” Trump said, “You fight back, Oh, it’s obstruction.”

Trump’s interview with Mueller’s investigators has not been scheduled, but the president suggested it could occur within the next two or three weeks. Terms of the interview have also not been set, with Trump saying it would be “subject to my lawyers.”

Months ago, Trump said he would “100 percent” agree to meet with Mueller’s investigators, but more recently questioned why any interview would be needed since there was “no collusion.”

Mueller is looking to interview Trump about his firing last year of former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, when he was heading the Russia investigation, before Mueller, over Trump’s objections, was appointed to take over the probe.

In addition, Mueller is looking at Trump’s dismissal of onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn and Comey’s claim that Trump then urged him to drop his probe of Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador to Washington in the weeks before Trump assumed power a year ago.

U.S. law makes it a crime to obstruct justice or hinder an “official proceeding.”

Legal experts say that while a sitting president can’t be prosecuted for obstruction of justice or any other crime, the charge of obstruction can be used by Congress to impeach a president, if it decides to pursue such a case.

Former President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, in part for obstruction of justice, while one of three articles of impeachment brought against Richard Nixon in 1974 alleged obstruction of justice.  Clinton was acquitted in a Senate trial, while Nixon resigned as the corruption case mounted against him.

Russia probe

Mueller’s investigation into the Russian election interference has reached into Trump’s Cabinet, with the interview last week of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while he was a U.S. senator and a Trump campaign advocate, and later played a role in Comey’s firing.  Comey was interviewed weeks ago.

Trump has contended the Mueller investigation and congressional probes into the Russian election meddling are a hoax perpetrated by Democrats looking to explain his upset victory over his opponent, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Trump and Republican colleagues in Congress increasingly have accused the FBI of bias in pursuing the Trump investigation and their dropping without charges of a 2016 probe into Clinton’s handling of classified material on a private email server while she was the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that shortly after Trump ousted Comey, the president had a get-to-know-you meeting with Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s acting director.

The Post said Trump “vented his anger” at McCabe, a longtime FBI official, for the fact that his wife had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations for her unsuccessful 2015 state Senate race in Virginia from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Clinton, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

Trump has complained in Twitter comments about McCabe and his wife’s Democratic Party fundraising.

 
…

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was willing to consider eventual citizenship for immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children by their parents.

“We’re going to morph into it. It’s going to happen, at some point in the future, over a period of 10 to 12 years,” Trump said to a group of reporters at the White House. 

On Twitter, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has proposed a bipartisan immigration deal with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, quickly hailed the president’s comments, saying they “will allow us to solve a difficult problem.” 

Such consideration for the so-called “Dreamers” who are beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy would be part of an immigration reform plan, according to the president, that would restrict family sponsorship of immigrants and curtail the diversity visa lottery program.

Trump also said he wanted $25 billion for constructing his oft-touted wall along the 3,200-kilometer (1,990-mile) U.S. border with Mexico.

The president’s comments, prior to his departure to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, came hours after his administration announced it would unveil on Monday an outline for lawmakers “that represents a compromise that members of both parties can support.”

The package is seen as an attempt by the White House to take the lead on the emotionally charged issue of immigration.

The reforms proposed by the administration “were assembled in coordination with front-line law enforcement officers and career public servants who know what is necessary to keep America safe,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters during Wednesday’s daily press briefing.

The administration said it was based on four fundamental issues: securing the border and closing legal loopholes; ending extended-family migration, called “chain migration” by some; canceling the visa lottery; and providing a permanent solution on DACA, which has allowed some who illegally entered the United States as minors to avoid deportation and be eligible for work permits.

The framework, according to the press secretary, takes into account conversations “with dozens” of House and Senate members from both parties.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump spoke to mayors gathered in the White House East Room, and he assailed those who had decided just hours before not to attend as word came that the Justice Department was demanding new proof from 23 states and cities that they were cooperating with federal immigration authorities to provide information about undocumented immigrants they have jailed for various alleged crimes.

“The mayors who choose to boycott this event have put the needs of criminal illegal immigrants over law-abiding Americans,” said the president, noting the “vast majority” showed up who “believe in safety for your city.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter he would not attend because the Justice Department “decided to renew their racist assault on our immigrant communities. It doesn’t make us safer and it violates America’s core values.”

The White House press secretary said earlier, “If mayors have a problem with that, they should talk to Congress, the people that pass the laws. The Department of Justice enforces them, and as long as that is the law, the Department of Justice is going to strongly enforce it.”

The White House spokeswoman added, “We cannot allow people to pick and choose what laws they want to follow.”

The Justice Department action aims to eliminate “sanctuary cities,” which provide safe havens for immigrants who have illegally entered the country.

“Sanctuary cities are the best friend of gangs and cartels,” Trump told the mayors.

The Justice Department is demanding proof from three states — Illinois, Oregon and California — that they are cooperating with immigration authorities, along with five major cities — New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Denver.

The political debate over U.S. immigration policies was at the center of the three-day partial government shutdown that ended Monday.

The White House and lawmakers have so far been unable to agree on how to protect the roughly 800,000 DACA beneficiaries. Trump rescinded the Obama-era program last year but gave Congress until March 5 to weigh in on the issue.

According to a Pew Research Center survey taken this month, 74 percent of Americans favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants brought to the United States illegally when they were children, while 60 percent oppose the president’s pledge to substantially expand the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
…

Protesters have been pouring into the streets in several Swiss cities to express opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attendance at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

Trump arrives Thursday in the Swiss ski resort and is slated to present his “America First” message in a speech Friday to global business and political leaders.

On the eve of his arrival, members of Trump’s economic team previewed the strategy for increasing U.S. global competitiveness.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, one of 10 Cabinet secretaries attending the gathering, endorsed a lower dollar, pushing the greenback to its lowest level in three years, according to the Bloomberg Dollar Index.

“Obviously, a weaker dollar is good for us as it relates to trade and opportunities,” Mnuchin told reporters at Davos.

A day after Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar-energy components and large washing machines, Mnuchin said he was not worried about what many see as a clash between Trump’s protectionist policies and the concept of globalism.

“This is about an ‘America First’ agenda, but ‘America First’ does mean working with the rest of the world” on free trade issues, Mnuchin said.

But many observers and analysts see an irreconcilable conflict of economic philosophies.

Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at Washington’s Peterson Institute for International Economics, expressed amusement at the prospect of the populist Trump speaking at a forum that has become a symbol of the growing consensus around an increasingly globalized world.

“It’s hard to square ‘America First’ with the Davos ethos of globalism, but Trump might put it this way: Every other country pursues its own interests first and foremost, while America makes concession after concession and carries burden after burden,” Hufbauer said in a written answer to a VOA request. “The time has come for America to act just like all the other countries represented in Davos.”

Presidential scholar Joshua Sandman of the University of New Haven likens Trump’s visit to the biblical story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.

“Even though the Davos people are antithetical to his populist message, he wants to confront them and to establish the legitimacy of the American approach as he articulates it, which is to confront globalism and put American interests first,” Sandman said in a phone interview.

Briefing White House reporters this week, Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said the president would use his speech at Davos to tell the world America is open for business. “We want the world to invest in America and create jobs for hardworking Americans,” he said.

“He’s going to talk to world leaders about making sure we all respect each other, we all abide by the laws, we all have free, fair, open, and reciprocal trade,” Cohn explained. “And if we live in a world where there are not artificial barriers, we will all grow and we will all help each other grow. And the president truly believes that.”

Political scientist Thomas Whalen of Boston University says Trump is unlikely to win many converts among the globalist crowd at Davos.

“Trump at Davos would be greeted about the same way an appearance by [disgraced Hollywood producer] Harvey Weinstein would go off at the Oscars,” Whalen said. “His approach to world affairs is anathema to those world leaders. We live in a 21st century interconnected globalized economy, and his idea of erecting trade barriers is going to unspool the entire system if left unchecked.”

Sideline meetings

The president ‘s schedule includes sideline meetings with several other world leaders, including British Prime Minister Theresa May. The president earlier canceled a planned trip to Britain for the opening of the new U.S. embassy in London, where he would be likely to face fierce protests. But National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Trump is prioritizing the meeting with May.

“We do have a special relationship,” McMaster said, adding that the meeting would touch on critical global issues, such as “the conflict in Syria, Iran’s destabilizing behavior, ways to address shortcomings in that Iran nuclear deal, and our shared goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.”

Trump also will meet the incoming African Union chairman, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, to “reaffirm the U.S.-Africa relationship and discuss shared priorities, including trade and security,” McMaster said.

The meeting comes weeks after Trump was reported to have used a vulgar slur to describe African countries during a conversation about immigration.

Trump will be the first U.S. president to attend the Davos forum since Bill Clinton in 2000. Other world leaders in attendance for the first time include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also will be there, but her advisers say she will not meet with Trump.

Economic adviser Cohn has attended several Davos meetings in his previous role as president of the Wall Street banking firm Goldman Sachs. Asked what Trump might find on his first trip to the Swiss resort that he would not expect, Cohn replied, “A lot of snow. Fourteen feet [4.25 meters] of snow.”
…

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump imposed new sanctions Wednesday aimed at halting North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs.

The Department of Treasury placed sanctions on nine entities, including two China-based trading firms that helped export millions of dollars’ worth of metals and other materials used in Pyongyang’s defense sector.

Sixteen individuals were also targeted, including members of the ruling Workers Party of Korea, who conduct business in China, Russia and the region of Abkhazia, a partially recognized state south of Russia and northwest of Georgia. The Treasury Department urged those countries to expel the individuals, who are prohibited from dealing with Americans.

Ten China- and Russian-based representatives of the Korean Ryonbong General Corporation were among those targeted. The company supports Pyongyang’s defense industry and is already under U.S. and U.N. sanctions. 

Five North Korean shipping companies and six vessels were also among the blacklisted entities.

“Treasury continues to systematically target individuals and entities financing the Kim [Jong-un] regime and its weapons programs, including officials complicit in North Korean sanctions evasion schemes,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

The latest sanctions come as the global community has resorted to an economic crackdown to curb the aggression of Kim’s regime. But the U.S. and other countries have cited continuous violations of the sanctions meant to deter the North’s nuclear and missile development programs.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and other world leaders when he attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, White House officials said on Tuesday.

Trump is due to take an overnight flight on Wednesday night to snowbound Davos, where he will encourage investment in the United States and cooperation on national security issues, including the fight against Islamic State and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Trump will have a full day of meetings in Davos on Thursday and then deliver a keynote address to the forum on Friday before returning to the United States later that day.

White House senior economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump will use his speech to encourage global companies to invest in the United States and take advantage of Trump’s corporate tax cuts.

He will also stress his “America First” policies and seek more reciprocal trade policies from U.S. allies, Cohn said, in keeping with Trump’s belief that international trade deals are tilted against the United States.

“The president will continue to promote fair economic competition and will make it clear that there cannot be free and open trade if countries are not held accountable to the rules,” Cohn told reporters.

Trump will be the first U.S. president to attend Davos in 20 years, giving him a chance to mingle with the same elite “globalists” that he bashed in his 2016 presidential run.

In addition to meetings with world leaders, Trump will also host a small dinner for European business executives on Thursday night.

“The attendees run companies that have sizeable footprints in the United States. They have invested in our economy, we want them to continue to do so and encourage others to join them,” said Cohn.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Trump will meet with Britain’s May to discuss North Korea, the Syrian civil war and the Iran nuclear deal, which lifted sanctions on Iran and which Trump has vowed to abandon unless changes can be made.

Trump and May have had a rocky first year since Trump took power, which included British anger over the U.S. leak of the name of a suicide bomber in Manchester last May.

The two sides have been unable to agree on an appropriate time for Trump to visit Britain. Earlier this month, he pulled out of a potential February trip for the opening of a new U.S. embassy in London.

Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu will be his first one since he declared that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a decision that has strained U.S. ties with some Arab leaders.

McMaster said that in the meeting with Netanyahu, Trump will “reiterate America’s strong commitment to Israel and efforts to reduce Iran’s influence in the Middle East and ways to achieve lasting peace.”

Other meetings include Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is chairman of the African Union, to discuss trade and security.

Trump will also meet with President Alain Berset of Switzerland.
…

U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is rational, ambitious and is not likely to settle for simply using his country’s nuclear weapons program to stay in power.

“We do believe that Kim Jung Un, given these tool sets, would use them for things besides simply regime protection,” U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo warned Tuesday.

“Call it coercive, how Kim Jong Un is prepared to use these nuclear weapons,” Pompeo said, describing the North Korean leader’s ultimate goal as “reunification of the (Korean) Peninsula under his authority.”

Pompeo and other intelligence officials have said repeatedly that Pyongyang is likely just months away from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear armed missile.  

But speaking at an event hosted in Washington by the conservative research group the American Enterprise Institute, Pompeo cautioned that the North Korean leader is bent on presenting the world with an even greater threat. 

“The logical next step would be to develop an arsenal of weapons … the capacity to deliver from multiple firings of these missiles simultaneously,” Pompeo said.

U.S. officials say President Donald Trump is focused on pursuing a diplomatic solution to the North Korean crisis, though defense and intelligence officials have also said all options are on the table to prevent North Korea from using nuclear weapons.

​Pompeo Tuesday refused to answer questions about whether there are any viable options for limited strikes to take out Pyongyang’s weapon sites, saying only, “We are working to prepare a series of options to make sure we can deliver a range of things so that the president will have the full sweep of possibilities.”

The CIA director also praised his agency for improving its reach and insights into North Korea over the past year, though he said more work needed to be done.

“We’re not quite where we need to be,” Pompeo said. “We are still suffering from having gaps.”

Among the gaps, Pompeo said, was the ability to gauge the impact sanctions on the North Korean regime.

Pyongyang has aggressively developed its nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programs in defiance of numerous international sanctions.

A number of countries and international organizations have imposed a variety of financial and trade sanctions against Pyongyang, including China’s decision to restrict oil and coal supplies to the country.

North Korea relies on imported fuel to keep its struggling economy afloat. Oil is also required for its intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear program.

And even if the sanctions are making an impact, there are ongoing concerns that Kim Jong Un may not fully understand the Trump administration’s resolve.

“We’re concerned that he may not be getting really good accurate information,” Pompeo said. “It is not a healthy thing to be a senior leader, bring bad news to Kim Jong-Un.”

“We’re taking the real-world actions that we think would make unmistakable to Kim Jong-Un that we are intent on denuclearization. We were counting on the fact that he will see it,” Pompeo said.
…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law a steep tariff on imported solar panels, a move billed as a way to protect American jobs but which the solar industry said would lead to tens of thousands of layoffs.

The following are some questions and answers about the decision:

What impact will the decision have on the solar industry?

Trump has said the tariff will lead to more U.S. manufacturing jobs, by preventing foreign goods that are cheap and often subsidized from undercutting domestic products. He also expects foreign solar panel producers to start manufacturing in the United States.

“You’re going to have people getting jobs again and we’re going to make our own product again. It’s been a long time,” Trump said as he signed the order.

The main solar industry trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, has a different view: It predicts the tariff will put 23,000 people out of work in the panel installation business this year by raising product costs and thus reducing demand.

Research firm Wood Mackenzie estimated that over the next five years the tariffs would reduce U.S. solar installation growth by 10 to 15 percent. The United States is the world’s fourth-largest solar market after China, Japan and Germany.

Research firm CFRA analyst Angelo Zino said he expected any added manufacturing jobs would be “minimal” given the 18 months to two years it takes to build and ramp up a new production facility and the industry’s shift toward automation.

Who wanted the tariff?

The main beneficiaries of the tariff include U.S.-based solar manufacturers Suniva and SolarWorld.

Suniva filed for bankruptcy in April, days before it filed the petition for trade relief. The Georgia-based company argued it could not compete with the cheap imports that have caused panel prices to fall more than 30 percent since 2016. It was later joined in the petition by SolarWorld. They asked the Trump administration for the equivalent of a 50 percent tariff.

Suniva is majority-owned by Hong Kong-based Shunfeng International Clean Energy, and SolarWorld is the U.S. arm of Germany’s SolarWorld AG.

Suniva called the tariffs “necessary,” while SolarWorld said it was “hopeful they will be enough.”

Most other U.S. solar companies, including SunPower, which manufactures panels in Asia, and residential installer SunRun Inc. were opposed to the trade barrier — as were offshore manufacturers such as China’s JinkoSolar, which will be among the biggest losers.

Solar manufacturer and developer First Solar supported the tariffs, and is likely to be among the biggest beneficiaries. First Solar makes panels using cadmium telluride that are excluded from the trade case. The company has seen an increase in demand for its unique technology.

Will the tariff lead to a trade war?

China branded the move an “overreaction” that would harm the global trade environment.

“The U.S.’s decision … is an abuse of trade remedy measures, and China expresses strong dissatisfaction regarding this,” said Wang Hejun, the head of the commerce ministry’s Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau. “China will work with other WTO [World Trade Organization] members to resolutely defend its legitimate interests in response to the erroneous U.S. decision.”

Trump dismissed worries of trade retaliation.

“There won’t be a trade war. It’ll only be stock increases for companies that are in our country,” he said.

How does the tariff fit into Trump’s energy policy?

If the tariff cools growth in the U.S. solar industry, it could help Trump’s effort to support the coal industry — which competes with renewable energy technologies for a share of the nation’s power generation market.

Trump campaigned on a promise to revive the ailing coal mining sector and boost U.S. production of other fossil fuels as a way to create jobs and bolster American influence overseas.

He has also downplayed the threat from global warming — an issue that led past administrations to throw their support behind emissions-free solar and wind energy development — rolling back climate change regulations and pulling the United States from a global pact to combat it.
…

A partial U.S. government shutdown ended Monday with Senate Democrats providing enough votes to restart federal funding for the next few weeks in return for a promise by the Republican leadership to bring an immigration bill up for a vote by February 8. VOA House correspondent Katherine Gypson looks at how the brief shutdown sets up an even tougher fight ahead on Capitol Hill.
…

The United States government is headed back to work Tuesday, but Russia does not appear to be done trying to capitalize on the nearly three-day-long shutdown.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill late Monday, funding the government through February 8. But even as lawmakers and the White House reached agreement, Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations continued to post hashtags seemingly aimed at amplifying the country’s political divisions.

As of 10 p.m. ET Monday night, the hashtag #schumershutdown had been used 535 times in the last 48 hours, according to Hamilton 68, an online site that tracks about 600 Twitter accounts.

Meanwhile, the site reported the top trending hashtag was #schumersellout – it’s use increasing by 4,800 percent over the same period.

Both hashtags refer to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who ultimately agreed to compromise with Republican lawmakers after initially refusing to support any spending bills without getting a deal on protecting “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to America as children, from possible deportation.

Among those using #schumershutdown Monday was U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

“Thanks to the firm stand taken by @POTUS & Senate & House Republicans, the gov’t shutdown is coming to an end. The #SchumerShutdown failed,” Pence tweeted Monday while visiting Israel.

President Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., also used it late Monday.

“Americans don’t forget that the #SchumerShutdown put illegal immigrants ahead of our military and American children’s insurance,” Trump, Jr. tweeted. “Just remember where you stood in their eyes.”

​

Meanwhile, #schumersellout began trending on Twitter Monday, used in 19,700 tweets as of about 10 p.m. ET.

Among the accounts using it was the Michigan Republican Party, which tweeted, “Schumer Sells Out the Resistance #SchumerSellout,” along with a link to an opinion column in The New York Times.

The Hamilton 68 website makes clear that hashtags like #schumershutdown or #schumersellout are often not created by the Russian-linked accounts. Instead, they often take hashtags created by Twitter users who are not necessarily linked to Russia and try to amplify them to help perpetuate existing divides.

The site said other top hashtags being heavily promoted by the Russian-linked accounts included “releasethememo”, “QAnon”, “maga”, “Syria”, “nodaca”, “wethepeople” and “Russia.”

#ReleasetheMemo, which the Russian-linked accounts tweeted 480 times Sunday and Monday, saw their heaviest usage late last week (Thursday and Friday), when the accounts tweeted the hashtag more than 3,000 times.

It also gained popularity among Twitter users, including some in Congress, pushing the House Intelligence Committee to release a confidential report written by the committee’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes.

They argued the report shed light of bias at the FBI and the Department of Justice, both of which have been investigation possible ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers from both parties have warned Russia is continuing to try to meddle in U.S. politics with an eye on the 2018 midterm elections. Russia has denied the allegation.

“They’re trying to undermine Western democracy,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Aspen Security Forum this past July, admitting Russia’s influence efforts are “quite a bit more sophisticated than they used to be.”

“I think all of my colleagues probably are worried or should be worried about it,” Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr warned last month.

“To believe that Russia’s not attempting in the United States to do things potentially for the ’18 cycle I think would be ignorant on our part,” Burr said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a bill reopening the government, ending a 3-day partial shutdown that was triggered in part by a partisan brawl over immigration.

Late Monday, members of the House of Representatives voted to approve the bill the U.S. Senate passed earlier in the day.

The so-called continuing resolution keeps the government funded until February 8 to allow Congress time to reach a longer-term budget agreement.

“It’s good news for the country,” Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio told reporters.

“Today is a day to celebrate,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said. “When government shuts down, it represents the ultimate failure to govern.”

“I am pleased that Democrats in Congress have come to their senses and are now willing to fund our great military, border patrol, first responders,” President Donald Trump said in a statement read by Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Trump later tweeted that after a “Big win for Republicans” he wants “a big win for everyone” on those issues.

“Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!” he said.

The White House argues Democrats “caved” after Trump refused to negotiate with them on immigration policy until the government reopened. Democrats had been holding out for a firmer commitment to provide protections for some 700,000 younger immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children.

Earlier, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky reassured Democrats that the Senate would address a range of immigration topics, including hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to America as children.

“So long as the government remains open, it would be my intention to take up legislation here in the Senate that would address DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], border security, and related issues as well as disaster relief, defense funding, health care and other important matters,” McConnell said.

Democrats, who banded together to help defeat a funding bill late Friday, signaled a wary acceptance of the Republican offer.

“While this procedure will not satisfy everyone on all sides, it’s a way forward,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “We expect that a bipartisan bill on DACA will receive fair consideration and an up-or-down vote on the [Senate] floor.”

Enacting immigration reform will require more than the Senate, however. Action by the House of Representatives and Trump’s signature will also be required.

The White House has sent conflicting signals on what the president will accept in a final immigration deal. House Republicans, meanwhile, said they are not bound by promises made in the Senate.

“What they do inside their [Senate] chamber is up to them,” Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole said.

“The Senate’s finally doing the job, but that doesn’t commit us to doing anything other than what we said,” Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York said. “We will also negotiate [on immigration] in good faith.”

Democrats, who had been hailed by immigrant rights advocates for drawing a line in the sand Friday, were blasted as weak-willed for taking the Republican deal.

“This Congress needs to get a heart and grow a backbone,” the California-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights said in a statement. “Democrats need to grow some courage and keep their word. It is a shame the leadership of the Democratic Senate chose to wait one more time to fulfill their promise to the Latino and immigrant community and the country as a whole.”

In a statement Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) complained, “This simply kicks the can down the road with no assurance that we will protect Dreamers [DACA recipients] from deportation or fight Republican attempts to curtail or eliminate legal immigration.”

President Trump repeatedly accused Democrats of siding with illegal immigrants over the American people, a charge Democrats firmly rejected. On Monday, however, the White House expressed hope for a bipartisan deal on immigration.

WATCH: Government reopens

​”I don’t think there’s a whole lot of daylight between where we are and where the Democrats are,” Sanders said at a press briefing. “We certainly want to negotiate and get to a place [agreement], and we’re hopeful we can do that over the next couple of weeks.”

The U.S. government’s 2018 fiscal year began in October of last year, but Congress has yet to authorize a full year of spending, passing a series of short-term funding measures at 2017 levels, instead. Democrats went along with three extensions but balked at a fourth last week after immigration talks with Republicans and the White House broke down.

VOA’s Peter Heinlein and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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The U.S. Senate advanced a stop-gap funding bill on Monday that paves the way to reopen the federal government three days into a partial shutdown that was triggered in part by a partisan brawl over immigration.

Thirty-three Democrats joined 48 Republicans to end debate in the 100-member chamber on a bill extending the government’s spending authority through Feb. 8, setting the stage for final Senate passage. Swift approval was expected in the House of Representatives, after which the bill would go to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature.

The Democrats had demanded firm assurances that the chamber would consider the fate of the immigrants who were brought into the U.S. years ago by their parents before agreeing to end the legislative standoff. Democratic leader Charles Schumer said McConnell assured him if the immigration issue is not resolved by February 8, the Senate would immediately consider it right after that date.

The legislation to end the shutdown must still be approved by the House of Representatives, but that is considered virtually certain, before the measure is sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.

Ahead of the vote, federal agencies on Monday were in the midst of furloughing thousands of civil servants without pay and starting to curtail their operations at the start of a new workweek. The shutdown had started at Friday midnight after the Senate failed to adopt a House-approved stop-gap funding measure that extended through mid-February.

The stalemate roiled official Washington.

Before the vote, Trump attacked Democratic lawmakers in new Twitter comments, saying, “The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!” He contended that “Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don’t want to do it but are powerless!”

White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told CNN that the Trump administration wants “to find a pathway” for the young immigrants, many of whom only know the U.S. as their home country, to stay in the United States. But Short also said “a real security threat” remains on the southern U.S. border with Mexico, with Trump demanding funding for a wall to thwart further illegal immigration.

A new Trump political ad accused Democrats of being “complicit” in U.S. murders committed by illegal immigrants.

Late Sunday, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said Democratic and Republican lawmakers had “yet to reach an agreement on a path forward” linking the full reopening of the government to resolution of the deportation issue.

Earlier, in a Senate speech, he called the partial government closure the “Trump Shutdown,” contending that he offered the president funding for the wall, a key 2016 Trump campaign promise, but that the U.S. leader would not compromise on other immigration policy changes.

“He can’t take yes for an answer,” Schumer said of Trump.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday, “We’re not going to start having negotiations about immigration reform until the government’s reopened. It’s pretty simple.”

The U.S. government has partially shut down on several occasions over lawmaking and funding disputes. The most recent till now was a 16-day shutdown in 2013 in a partisan deadlock over health care policy. About 850,000 federal workers were furloughed then.

Services that stop or continue during a federal shutdown vary. But federal research projects could be stalled, national parks and museums closed, tax questions left unanswered, processing of veterans’ disability applications delayed, and federal nutrition programs suspended, as was the case in 2013.

Senate lawmakers spent all day Sunday meeting and negotiating and looking for a way to end the impasse on immigration. McConnell called off a 1 a.m. Monday vote on reopening the government in favor of the vote at noon, Washington time.

With Republican and Democratic lawmakers blaming each other for the stalemate, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday also appeared to fault the White House for the immigration standoff, specifically hardline immigration Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

“Every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Graham said. “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiation on immigration, we are going nowhere.”

Graham said Miller is out of the “mainstream” with his immigration views.

Sanders called Graham’s comments “a sad and desperate attempt…to tarnish a staffer.” She said Miller was not at the White House “to push his agenda,” but rather to support Trump’s immigration views.

 
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The White House is defending a tough new ad by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign that says Democrats will be “complicit” in any killings committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

The 30-second spot was released on Saturday’s anniversary of Trump’s inauguration and amid the government shutdown. Democrats are refusing to fund the government unless Republicans agree to protect some 700,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The ad highlights the Republican president’s pledge to build a border wall and tighten border security.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says national security is Trump’s top priority as president.

Sanders told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that “it’s absolutely appropriate for the commander in chief to do everything he can to make sure he’s protecting our citizens.”
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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats in the chamber will vote to reopen the government, which has been partially shutdown for three days.

The vote is on funding the government through February 8.  It comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell assured opposition Democratic lawmakers that he would in the coming weeks allow a vote on protecting about 800,000 young illegal immigrants from deportation

Earlier, President Donald Trump attacked Democratic lawmakers in new Twitter comments, saying, “The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!” He contended that “Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base. They don’t want to do it but are powerless!”

White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told CNN that the Trump administration wants “to find a pathway” for the young immigrants, many of whom only know the U.S. as their home country, to stay in the United States. But Short also said “a real security threat” remains on the southern U.S. border with Mexico, with Trump demanding funding for a wall to thwart further illegal immigration.

A new Trump political ad accuses Democrats of being “complicit” in U.S. murders committed by illegal immigrants.

At the same time, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said late Sunday that Democratic and Republican lawmaker had “yet to reach an agreement on a path forward” linking the full reopening of the government to resolution of the deportation issue.

‘Trump Shutdown’

Earlier, in a Senate speech, he called the partial government closure the “Trump Shutdown,” contending that he offered the president funding for the wall, a key 2016 Trump campaign promise, but that the U.S. leader would not compromise on other immigration policy changes.

“He can’t take yes for an answer,” Schumer said of Trump.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters, “We’re not going to start having negotiations about immigration reform until the government’s reopened. It’s pretty simple.”

The effect of the shutdown was relatively minimal over the weekend, but on Monday, federal agencies moved to furlough without pay thousands of workers considered to be non-essential. They halted some portions of their operations when no agreement was reached in the Senate on Sunday or in the early hours of Monday.

The U.S. government has partially shut down on several occasions over lawmaking and funding disputes. The most recent was a 16-day shutdown in 2013 in a partisan deadlock over health care policy. About 850,000 federal workers were furloughed then.

Services that stop or continue during a federal shutdown vary. But federal research projects could be stalled, national parks and museums closed, tax questions left unanswered, processing of veterans’ disability applications delayed, and federal nutrition programs suspended, as was the case in 2013.

Senate lawmakers spent all day Sunday meeting and negotiating and looking for a way to end the impasse on immigration that forced the government shutdown at midnight Friday. But it was unclear exactly how much progress had been made. Maine’s Susan Collins, a Republican moderate, told reporters a group of 22 of her colleagues were determined to find a way to resolve the conflict.

South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham said there needs to be what he calls an “understanding” from Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that after a temporary funding bill is passed, the Senate would then tackle immigration as part of a long-term spending bill that extends to the end of the current fiscal year on September 30.

McConnell called off a 1 a.m. Monday vote on reopening the government in favor of the vote at noon, Washington time.

With Republican and Democratic lawmakers blaming each other for the stalemate, Graham on Sunday also appeared to fault the White House for the immigration standoff, specifically hardline immigration Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

“Every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Graham said. “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiation on immigration, we are going nowhere.”

Graham said Miller is out of the “mainstream” with his immigration views. There has been no response so far from the White House on Graham’s comments.

Sanders called Graham’s comments “a sad and desperate attempt…to tarnish a staffer.” She said Miller was not at the White House “to push his agenda,” but rather to support Trump’s immigration views.

Pete Heinlein at the White House contributed to this report
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Two moderate Senate Republican voices in Washington’s budget battle may offer hope the the U.S. government shutdown might be moving toward resolution.

Maine’s Susan Collins told reporters a group of 22 of her colleagues are determined to find a way out.

“A substantial number of senators are eager to find that path,” she said, while adding that details of their negotiations are still “in flux.”

Meanwhile, South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham said he believes there could be a “breakthrough” before the Senate’s scheduled vote on funding the government for at least another three weeks.

Graham told reporters there needs to be what he calls an “understanding” from Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that after a temporary funding bill is passed,  the Senate would then tackle immigration — the issue that led to the impasse — as part of a longterm spending bill.

The House passed a budget to fund the federal government late last week.

But Senate Democrats have so far refused, demanding protection from deportation for the so-called “dreamers,” young immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children.

Republicans say they will not discuss immigration until the government reopens.

Each side blames the other for the government shutdown that has suspended all but essential services because there is no authority to spend any funds.

McConnell calls the Democrats’ demand for the dreamers “a political miscalculation of gargantuan proportions.” He said he considers it a “non-emergency” since President Donald Trump gave Congress a March 5 deadline to find a solution to the matter.

McConnell echoed Trump by calling the standoff the “Schumer Shutdown, for Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.

Democrat Schumer calls it the “Trump Shutdown.”

He blamed the president for agreeing to sign an immigration deal last week, then changing his mind hours later.Schumer said during at a Friday White House meeting he offered Trump a deal to fund his top immigration priority – a wall along the border with Mexico –  in exchange for protection for the dreamers.

“I essentially agreed to give the president something he wanted (the wall) for something we both wanted (protection of the immigrants against deportation)” Schumer said. “He can’t take yes for an answer.”

Senator Graham appeared Sunday to blame the White House for the immigration standoff, specifically hardline Trump advisor Stephen Miller.

“Every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Graham said Sunday. “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiation on immigration, we are going nowhere.”

Graham said Miller is out of the “mainstream” with his immigration views. There has been no response so far from the White House on Graham’s comments.

Trump tweeted Sunday, “Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border” with Mexico. “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked.”

Federal agencies, meanwhile, prepared to idle employees and halt major portions of their operations if no agreement was reached Sunday or in the early hours of Monday.

The U.S. government partially shut down on several occasions over lawmaking and funding disputes. The most recent was a 16 day shutdown in 2013 in a partisan deadlock over health care policy.  About 850,000 federal workers were furloughed.

Services that stop or continue during a federal shutdown varies. But federal research projects could be stalled, national parks and museums closed, tax refunds delayed, processing of veterans’ disability applications delayed, and federal nutrition programs suspended, as was the case in 2013.
…

Demonstrators gathered in cities across the United States, and around the world, to call for equal rights in pay and health care, to denounce sexual harassment and to encourage women to run for office. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, this year’s “Women’s March” isn’t just a protest. Organizers hope it’s a nationwide call to action.
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The women gathered across the US and around the world to call for equal rights in pay and health care, to denounce sexual harassment, and to encourage women to run for office.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on Saturday issued a new video ad calling Democrats “complicit” in murders committed by illegal immigrants, during a government shutdown partly triggered by an impasse over immigration.

The Trump campaign released the ad, titled “Complicit,” on the anniversary of the Republican president’s inauguration.

It focuses on an undocumented immigrant, Luis Bracamontes, charged in the 2014 killings of two police officers in Sacramento, California. The man’s lawyers had questioned his sanity but a judge found him mentally competent to stand trial, according to a report last week in The Sacramento Bee.

“Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants,” the ad says.

The new ad is likely to anger Democrats and immigration advocates and could inflame tensions over the issue on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans were working through the weekend to reach an agreement that would reopen the government.

A news release announcing the ad blamed Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York for the shutdown, accusing him and Democrats of “holding lawful citizens hostage over their demands for amnesty for illegal immigrants.”

Schumer’s spokesman said in an email, “This is a shameless attempt by the president to distract from the Trump shutdown. Rather than campaigning, he should do his job and negotiate a deal to open the government and address the needs of the American people.”

“It’s a campaign ad, which tend to be extreme, but this is completely divorced from reality and full of fear and hate,” said Melanie Nezer, vice president of the refugee agency HIAS.

Trump filed for re-election the day he took office, an unusual move that has allowed him to begin campaigning long before the November 2020 election. Historically, incumbent presidents have waited two years, until after the midterm elections, to file formally.

On Friday, most Senate Democrats opposed a bill that would have avoided the shutdown, because their efforts to include protections for hundreds of thousands of mostly young immigrants, known as Dreamers, were rejected by Trump and Republican leaders.

The Dreamers were brought illegally into the United States as children, and they were given temporary legal status under a program started by former President Barack Obama.
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The Trump administration’s promise to exempt Florida from an offshore drilling plan is not a formal action, an Interior Department official said Friday in a statement that Democrats said contradicted a high-profile announcement by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

Zinke has proposed opening nearly all U.S. coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling, but said soon after announcing the plan that he will keep Florida “off the table” when it comes to offshore drilling.

Zinke’s Jan. 9 statement about Florida “stands on its own,” said Walter Cruickshank, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, but there’s been no formal decision on the five-year drilling plan.

No decision

“We have no formal decision yet on what’s in, or out, of the five-year program,” Cruickshank told the House Natural Resources Committee at a hearing Friday.

Zinke’s announcement about keeping Florida off the table, made during a Tallahassee news conference with Florida Gov. Rick Scott, will be part of the department’s analysis as it completes the five-year plan, Cruickshank said.

Democrats seized on the comment to accuse Zinke of playing politics by granting the Republican governor’s request to exempt Florida while ignoring nearly a dozen other states that made similar requests.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson called Cruickshank’s comments “stunning” and said they confirm what he and other Democrats had suspected — that Zinke’s statement was “nothing more than a political stunt” to help Scott run for Nelson’s Senate seat.

Scott is a friend and ally of President Donald Trump, and Trump has urged him to run for the Senate.

Zinke’s promise to take Florida off the table was “just empty words” until he takes formal steps needed to publish a new draft plan that excludes Florida, Nelson said.

​Florida governor confident

Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for Zinke, called the claims by Nelson and other Democrats false. 

“Cruickshank simply said BOEM will finish the legally required analysis of the planning areas, as is always done for all planning areas,” she said in an email.

Scott said Friday he did not see Cruickshank’s comments but was confident the Trump administration will not allow drilling in Florida.

“Secretary Zinke is a man of his word. He’s a Navy Seal. He promised me that Florida would be off the table, and I believe Florida is off the table,” Scott told reporters Friday.

States seek exemptions

Zinke announced plans two weeks ago to vastly expand offshore oil drilling from the Atlantic to the Arctic and Pacific oceans, including in more than a dozen states where drilling is now blocked. The five-year plan would open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to development by private companies.

The plan has drawn bipartisan opposition by coastal state governors from California to New Hampshire, with at least 11 governors formally asking Zinke to remove their states from the plan. Seven governors from Massachusetts to North Carolina submitted a joint request for exemptions this week.

“Like Florida, each of our states has unique natural resources and an economy that is reliant on tourism as an essential driver,” the governors wrote. The letter was signed by Republican leaders of Massachusetts and Maryland and Democrats from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina.

By exempting Florida but not other states, Zinke showed he is “more concerned with politics than proper process when it comes to making key decisions that affect our coastal communities,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Zinke’s action may violate the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which governs drilling in U.S. coastal waters, Cantwell said. The law requires formal notice and a comment period before taking regulatory action.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., a member of the natural resources panel, told Cruickshank that the Interior Department has not offered “a single reason why Florida is more unique than California or Virginia or South Carolina or other coastal states.”

Oil industry groups have praised Zinke’s plan, while environmental groups say it would harm America’s oceans, coastal economies, public health and marine life.

Nelson said this week he is blocking three Trump nominees for high-level Interior jobs to protest the drilling proposal.
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One year after more than 4 million protesters rallied for the Women’s March in cities across the country, tens of thousands are expected here in Washington for an anniversary march. While the focus for the first march was the newly inaugurated president, this year’s march takes place at a time when women are speaking out more than ever, highlighting sexual harassment and the abuse of power. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes a look at the growth of the #MeToo movement.
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U.S. health officials on Friday said they were revoking legal guidance issued by the Obama administration that had sought to discourage states from trying to defund organizations that provide abortion services, such as Planned Parenthood.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials also said the department is issuing a new regulation aimed at protecting health care workers’ civil rights based on religious and conscience objections.

The regulation protects the rights of health care workers from providing abortion, euthanasia, and sterilization, the officials said during a media call with reporters.

On Thursday, HHS said it was creating a new division that would focus on conscience and religious objections, a move it said was necessary after years of the federal government forcing health care workers to provide such services.

HHS will issue a letter Friday to state Medicaid offices that will rescind the Obama administration’s 2016 guidance, which was issued after states including Indiana had tried to defund abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

The guidance “restricted states’ ability to take certain actions against family-planning providers that offer abortion services,” HHS said in a statement.

The Medicaid program, jointly funded by states and the federal government, provides health care services to the poor and disabled. Federal law prohibits Medicaid or any other federal funding for abortion services.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the move encourages states to try to block access to care at Planned Parenthood.

“The law is clear, it is illegal to bar women from seeking care at Planned Parenthood. Longstanding protections within Medicaid safeguard every person’s right to access care at their qualified provider of choice,” Laguens said in a statement.

New rule

The rule will enforce existing statutes that guarantee these civil rights. Roger Severino, the director of the Office of Civil Rights at HHS, said the office had received 34 complaints since President Donald Trump took office last January.

When asked by reporters if the rule would allow providers to deny care to transgender individuals based on religious objections, Severino said the rule refers to statutes that are based on providing procedures.

Experts on Thursday said the move to protect workers on religious grounds raised the possibility it could provide legal cover for otherwise unlawful discrimination, and encourage a broader range of religious objections.
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The government has officially shut down 18 times since 1976, when the current federal budgeting process was instituted.

The last time was in 2013, in a deadlock over health care policy. The shutdown lasted 16 days and furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

What stops and what continues during a federal shutdown varies, but in 2013, 850,000 federal workers were furloughed, meaning they could not come to work. Technically, federal workers cannot be paid for those days, but in the past, they have been paid retroactively.

The 850,000 figure amounts to less than half of the federal civilian workforce of 2 million. Essential agencies, such the FBI, Border Patrol, and Voice of America, continue functioning with a skeleton staff. Air traffic controllers will stay on the job, as will federal security agents at airports.

Overseas, U.S. embassies also have “essential” staff members who will continue to perform basic duties; however, the State Department has not elaborated on what duties it could still perform in the event of a shutdown.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said his department is “ready” if the government shuts down. Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters Thursday that officials had yet to decide what services will continue but added, “We will be prepared for all contingencies.”

In 2013, immigration and citizenship services continued, but were limited. The U.S. Electronic Immigration System, which includes an “e-verify” system to help process employment applications, is expected to be unavailable during a shutdown.

U.S. mail services are expected to continue, but federal tax refunds could be delayed. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Friday that the national parks would be open this time, especially if services are provided by third parties. Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters Friday the city will pick up the trash all around the monuments on the National Mall and bill the federal government.

The National Zoo would likely close to visitors, although workers would continue to feed and care for its residents — some 1,800 animals of about 300 different species.

Based on 2013, federal courts can be expected to remain open. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said the federal court system can function for about three weeks without needing additional funds.

Medicare insurance for the elderly is expected to continue, but research programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be suspended until funding is restored.

Military personnel are expected to continue working, but civilian employees of the military would likely be placed on unpaid leave.

The Veterans Administration is expected to continue functioning, including operation of its hospitals.

Some agencies, like the federal courts and Department of State, can function for several weeks on their remaining funds. After that time, more services could be curtailed.
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